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From the Los Angeles Times

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Submachine guns, handguns stolen from LAPD SWAT-training site

Police officials confirm that more than 30 firearms, stored overnight at a building considered secure, were stolen. 'It's embarrassing.... It's a lesson learned,' Deputy Chief Michael Downing says.

by Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

October 17, 2011

A cache of Los Angeles Police Department submachine guns and handguns was stolen last week from a secured building used by the department's SWAT unit, raising fears that the weapons, which police had altered to fire only blanks, could be converted back to lethal use, police officials confirmed.

The weapons, which include 21 MP-5 submachine guns and 12 large caliber handguns, were moved Wednesday night to a multistory building at 14th and San Pedro streets downtown and stored in a locked box on the building's first floor, said LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Downing.

Members of the SWAT unit, which specializes in hostage rescues and other high-risk situations, were scheduled to train at the facility Thursday, Downing said. A police officer arriving at the building around 9 a.m. Thursday discovered the weapons were missing, according to Downing. The officer also found electrical equipment stacked near a back door, indicating the burglars may still have been working and fled when the officer arrived.

Downing said the building, although not a guarded LAPD facility, was considered secure. To get to the weapons, the thieves cut through bolt locks on an outside door and two internal doors and forced their way through a metal roll gate, he said.

"I guess 'secure' is all relative now," he said. "It's embarrassing.... It's a lesson learned."

The theft was particularly awkward because it involved the SWAT unit, one of the most prestigious assignments in the department and one whose members are trained to methodically think through the possible outcomes of situations before acting.

When told about the weapons theft, other LAPD officers, who asked that their names not be used because they did not want to criticize fellow cops publicly, questioned why the weapons weren't simply kept at SWAT's headquarters, about a mile from the training site. "Even with some locked doors, they should have seen this as a possibility," one said.

As a rule, Downing said, officers are not supposed to leave weapons unattended at the building. He added that "appropriate measures" had been taken in response to the gaffe but would not specify if anyone had been disciplined. He said officials are also reviewing SWAT's procedures for using the building to see if changes are needed.

The building, which once housed textile companies, was donated to the department. Inside, the department put up walls and made other changes in order to create realistic scenarios for training exercises. They did not install an alarm system or surveillance cameras.

Shortly after the break-in was discovered, detectives from the LAPD's local police station and forensic technicians were summoned to the building, but several hours passed before Downing and other senior LAPD officials were made aware of the breach. When Downing finally learned of the stolen weapons about five hours later, he ordered investigators with expertise in gun thefts to take over the case, he said.

Those investigators are "working on leads," Downing said. He declined to elaborate but added that he believes the weapons will be found.

It was no secret that the facility, named the Kennedy Building after its owner, was used by SWAT for training. The officers could be seen coming and going and sometimes put on public demonstrations there. That raised the possibility that the thieves had been surveilling the site.

Asked whether there was any indication that the burglary was an inside job involving LAPD officers, Downing declined to comment, except to say, "We're not ruling anything out."

"You wonder if this was a planned operation, what information they had, whether they were conducting surveillance," Downing said.

About a month ago, a woman was seen photographing the building, which triggered an investigation by the officers from the department's counter-terrorism division, according to Downing. That incident appears unrelated to the break-in, but investigators are continuing to investigate, he said.

The obvious concern is that whoever stole the weapons will convert them from firing blanks to using live ammunition. Downing acknowledged that was "definitely a possibility" but said that to do so would require an understanding of the inner workings of the weapons.

Gun experts and online tutorials suggest, however, that the process is relatively simple and requires only a few parts. The company that manufactures the conversion kits used by the LAPD has an instructional video on its website that walks a viewer through the steps of returning an MP-5 to its original form in about five minutes.

The parts required to change the MP-5 back to live firing were for sale on a gun supply website. It was unclear, however, what documentation or background checks would be required to purchase them.

The idea that nearly three dozen high-powered submachine guns and .45-caliber handguns could make their way onto the black market or be put to use by criminals worried LAPD officials enough that they notified law enforcement agencies in the region.

"This is a big deal," Downing said. "We're concerned. We want to recover them."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-guns-missing-20111017,0,4016252,print.story

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Border agency's rapid growth accompanied by rise in corruption

Since October 2004, 132 U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees have been indicted or convicted on corruption-related charges. Rapid expansion and lack of funds for background checks are blamed.

by Andrew Becker and Richard Marosi

October 16, 2011

When Luis Alarid was a child, his mother would seat him in the car while she smuggled people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. She was the sweet-talking commuter, he was her cute boy, and the mother-son ploy regularly kept customs inspectors from peeking inside the trunk.

Twenty-five years later, Alarid was back at the border in San Diego, seeking a job as a customs inspector. To get hired by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, he first needed to clear screening that examined his personal, financial and work histories.

Alarid had served in the Marines and Army, which was a factor in his favor. But there was cause for concern: His finances were in shambles, including $30,000 in credit card debt. His mother, father and other relatives had been convicted of or indicted on charges of smuggling.

After the background check and an interview, Alarid was cleared for a border posting.

Within months, he turned his government job into a lucrative criminal enterprise. In cahoots with a gang that included his uncle and, allegedly, his mother, Alarid let cars into California filled with drugs and illegal immigrants.

"I was inside now, going around understanding how things work," Alarid said in a telephone interview from federal prison in Kentucky, where he is serving a seven-year sentence for corruption.

Alarid's is one of several corruption cases in recent years that have raised concerns about the adequacy of the customs agency's screening, a joint examination by The Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

As the agency rapidly increased staffing, the system designed to identify shady job applicants struggled to keep pace, resulting in hurried background checks and loosened hiring standards, said former and current Customs officials, background investigators and Border Patrol union officials.

At a congressional hearing in June, Customs Commissioner Alan Bersin acknowledged screening problems, and other officials have said that insufficient funding created a backlog of background investigations. "The accelerated hiring pace under which we operated between 2006 and 2008 … exposed critical organizational and individual vulnerabilities within," Bersin said.

Alarid's case and others also highlight the difficulty of assessing job candidates: Should prospective agents, for instance, be rejected because of the crimes of relatives? Should a background in Mexican law enforcement be enough to disqualify a candidate because of that country's rampant police corruption? Are high debt levels a sign of recklessness or the consequence of a weak economy?

Border agents and Customs inspectors are exposed to endless illegal moneymaking opportunities. Dozens of officers in recent years have turned their government jobs into illicit riches, funding desert estates and Las Vegas gambling binges, luxury cars and buying sprees at Tiffany's.

"It's such a perfect storm, if you will, down there along the southwest border, with the vast supply of money and the aggressive tactics of the cartels," said Terry Reed, an FBI supervisory agent.

Since October 2004, 132 Customs employees have been indicted or convicted on corruption-related charges, the majority from the Southwest border. Since 2006, the number of investigations has more than tripled, from 244 to about 870 last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General.

Of the 24,000 Customs agents along the southwest border, about half were hired in the last five years. The agency is on track to hire 2,500 additional agents in the next year.

Job requirements at Customs, for which agents don't need a high school diploma, have always been more lenient than at other federal agencies. The FBI, for example, requires a college degree and relevant work experience. Critics contend that the Border Patrol traditionally hired candidates with some military or college experience but that that changed in recent years, when the ranks were filled with younger and less-experienced applicants, some still in their teens.

W. Ralph Basham, Customs commissioner from 2006 until 2009, said he told high-ranking officials at the Department of Homeland Security that he was not comfortable with the agency's rapid expansion. Those concerns were dismissed.

"We cautioned against this strategy, but we were under tremendous pressure along the Southwest border to do something," Basham said.

The sharp increase in corruption cases has resulted in reforms. Customs started bolstering its internal affairs division in 2007, and Congress last year passed legislation that requires all prospective agents by 2013 to undergo polygraph testing.

So many applicants were awaiting screening in 2009 that the turnaround time was 294 days, government statistics showed. In some cases, investigators under pressure to work faster cut corners by doing fewer, or shorter, interviews of candidates' former employers, landlords and relatives. Some of the background checks are done by outside contractors who get paid per investigation and have an incentive to quickly complete the reviews.

"Whenever there's a big fluctuation in hiring, it puts a real strain on the selection process and background investigations involved," said William Henderson, a retired government background investigator and author of a security clearance manual.

The backlog has also hampered reviews of veteran agents, who often don't undergo the required five-year periodic investigations until years later, said background investigators and agents.

Even with sufficient time, screeners can't always get a full picture of an applicant's life. John Paul Yanez-Camacho, for instance, was a former law enforcement officer from the Mexican state of Chihuahua and a manager of a nightclub in Ciudad Juarez owned by a suspected drug trafficker when he applied in 2003 to be an inspector. But investigators didn't know his full employment history, in part because the Mexican government doesn't permit U.S. background investigators to conduct probes in their country.

Two years after being hired, Yanez-Camacho started accessing a sensitive law enforcement database without authorization. From 2005 to 2006, he did so more than 250 times, often trying to get information about law enforcement investigations involving the suspected drug trafficker, according to his plea agreement.

Authorities suspected that Yanez-Camacho was passing along confidential information, but his motives remain a mystery. "He can't explain how he did that, why he did that and why he compromised his situation at the port of entry," Assistant U.S. Atty. Ed Weiner said at a court hearing in 2009 at which Yanez-Camacho was sentenced to probation for the misdemeanor violation.

Agents who are longtime border residents are often more susceptible to corruption because they often inherit networks of family members involved with organized crime, Customs officials say.

Former Border Patrol agent Salomon Ruiz, convicted of corruption in 2009, had uncles who were longtime smugglers in the McAllen, Texas, area, and his father had been deported to Mexico for drug trafficking. Jesus Huizar, a border patrol agent convicted in 2008, partnered with his wife's uncle, a known trafficker, in a human-smuggling scheme in El Paso.

The Customs agency could address the problem by forbidding most agents from working in their hometowns. But relocation is costly, and it's harder to find applicants who want to move, border authorities said.

The background investigator for Alarid, the San Diego customs inspector, asked him if he had contact with his parents. Alarid, who was raised in foster homes for much of his youth, said no. It was a lie.

Alarid was proud of his family's smuggling pedigree. He said he idolized his grandfather, a longtime drug trafficker from Baja California who in 1978 was indicted on trafficking charges. He'd visit with his father, a convicted drug dealer, and he'd take groceries and money to his often-homeless mother, who had served jail terms for smuggling and arson convictions.

But Alarid had a lot going for him. He was a high school track star and received commendations for his military service in Kosovo and Iraq. When his employment application was forwarded to an adjudicator who made hiring decisions, the adjudicator decided in Alarid's favor.

Alarid's large debt "was carefully reviewed, and there was believed to be mitigating factors, and there was a determination of suitable," said James Tomsheck, the agency's assistant commissioner for internal affairs.

Within months of going to work for Customs in October 2007, the rookie opened the gates. On cigarette breaks he would make calls to smugglers in Tijuana, telling them which lane at the port of entry he was handling. Over a four-month period, Alarid's scheme earned him about $200,000.

Some federal officials and investigators question Alarid's hiring. Screeners should have delved deeper into his relationship with his biological parents, and his debt seemed excessive, they said.

"There should have been some red flags that went up there. That guy should never have been hired," said Earl Stickler, a background investigator from Arizona.

Even Alarid, 35, wonders how he got the job.

"If I was a background investigator, I wouldn't have hired me," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-border-corrupt-20111017,0,1769707,print.story

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From Google News

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Pakistan

Community policing answer to people's woes: police chief

Public involvement required in the fight against crime

by Samisoni Nabilivalu

THE Fiji Police Force believes crime prevention is a shared responsibility between them and members of the public and is looking to promote the concept of community policing nationwide.

Following the creation of the National Crime Prevention Board, the Fiji Police Force has begun reaching out to communities around the country in an effort to raise awareness on the concept.

At last week's police symposium themed "Strong partnership with the community", members of the public, the business sector, youth and community leaders, government officials, and other stakeholders got an opportunity to present papers and participate and contribute to building knowledge about effective community policing practices.

Assistant Commissioner and Chief of Staff, Ravi Narayan, said the force was working towards setting up a rural, divisional and national platform for the nationwide adoption of the concept.

He said community engagement programs in the past had shown the effectiveness of bringing people together who were willing to assist in the administration and maintenance of the law with the police.

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=183431

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